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Conference Presentations by Keith Ballantyne

Changing Trends in Architectural Education

This paper will problematise the contemporary fundamental distinction between architectural profe... more This paper will problematise the contemporary fundamental distinction between architectural profession (practice) and architectural education (academia). The common understanding sees these two domains as separate, disconnected and even in opposition in the arena of architectural conduct. This common notion usually affiliates professional practice with the concept of praxis and academic education with the concept of theory.
In this situation, one could suggest that professional practice and academia become the limits of a continuum; at one end, professionals disparaging academia seeing it as theoretical, abstract and removed from everyday practice, while academics disparage practice, thinking of it as a banal, anti-intellectual and base application of theoretical concepts.
Returning to the origins of the concepts of praxis and theory, this paper attempts to re-address their problematic by finding threads of connection within the context of architecture. Aristotelian Ethical tradition situates three kinds of ethical activities (energeíai), in order of importance: theoria, poiésis and praxis. Aristotle, in privileging theory over practice, established the foundation of our current polemic. Through a greater understanding of the roles and relationships of each of these activities it becomes clear that none works in abstraction from the other.
In these terms, if we accept theoria (theory) as the pursuit of truth and knowledge for its own sake through contemplation, and practice (praxis), as a pursuit for knowledge and creation through ‘making’, we can begin to understand more clearly how a shifted notion of theory relates to praxis. So, far from being in opposition to theory, practice has an inseparable relationship with it. Architectural practice is not merely the doing of something, but rather a considered, creative, dialectical act of creation fully engaged in the pursuit of truth and knowledge.
This conflation of practice and theory is examined through an analysis of studio teaching and student projects at the first-year level at the Architecture School at the University of Edinburgh in 2005/06, where the authors are Course Organiser and Tutors. Using studio projects as key studies, we will test the teaching and learning procedures that reflect the notions of theory and practice that appear in design education.
Ongoing ethnomethodological study of these projects through interviews; video and audio recordings from the tutorials and the reviews; photos of the drawings, sketches and models made during the design process; and the experience of participant observation as teachers - contrasted with our experience in professional architectural practice - illustrate a fresh interrelation between practice and theory. By moving along the continuum between architectural academia and practice, we will explore the space between the extremes of the Aristotelian theoria and praxis.

Papers by Keith Ballantyne

The issues of practice and academia are inextricably connected yet demarcated by the deepest of d... more The issues of practice and academia are inextricably connected yet demarcated by the deepest of divisions. Often, the concerns of (either) one seem of little consequence to the other. Practice, with its inherent demand to respond to its economic imperative, expects academia to provide an inexhaustible supply of freshly trained ‘talent’, prepared to competently produce an endless volume of construction details. Academia, with limited time to share only the narrowest bit of knowledge in pursuit of educating the next generation of stewards of the built environment, have little time for the hard pragmatics of the practice environment. This suggests a certain binary relationship that surely does not exist, by and large, in this most extreme form. To invoke the metaphor of a continuum, with design/theory on one extreme and service-oriented practice at the opposite extreme, we can situate each architectural education institution and each architectural practice along that continuum appropri...

Changing Trends in Architectural …, Jan 1, 2006

Changing Trends in Architectural …, 2006

Changing Trends in Architectural Design Education 267 Architectural Practice and Academia: the pr... more Changing Trends in Architectural Design Education 267 Architectural Practice and Academia: the praxis and theoria continuum Keith Ballantyne, Leonidas Koutsoumpos School of Arts, Culture & Environment, Department of Architecture, University of Edinburgh ...

Changing Trends in Architectural Education

This paper will problematise the contemporary fundamental distinction between architectural profe... more This paper will problematise the contemporary fundamental distinction between architectural profession (practice) and architectural education (academia). The common understanding sees these two domains as separate, disconnected and even in opposition in the arena of architectural conduct. This common notion usually affiliates professional practice with the concept of praxis and academic education with the concept of theory.
In this situation, one could suggest that professional practice and academia become the limits of a continuum; at one end, professionals disparaging academia seeing it as theoretical, abstract and removed from everyday practice, while academics disparage practice, thinking of it as a banal, anti-intellectual and base application of theoretical concepts.
Returning to the origins of the concepts of praxis and theory, this paper attempts to re-address their problematic by finding threads of connection within the context of architecture. Aristotelian Ethical tradition situates three kinds of ethical activities (energeíai), in order of importance: theoria, poiésis and praxis. Aristotle, in privileging theory over practice, established the foundation of our current polemic. Through a greater understanding of the roles and relationships of each of these activities it becomes clear that none works in abstraction from the other.
In these terms, if we accept theoria (theory) as the pursuit of truth and knowledge for its own sake through contemplation, and practice (praxis), as a pursuit for knowledge and creation through ‘making’, we can begin to understand more clearly how a shifted notion of theory relates to praxis. So, far from being in opposition to theory, practice has an inseparable relationship with it. Architectural practice is not merely the doing of something, but rather a considered, creative, dialectical act of creation fully engaged in the pursuit of truth and knowledge.
This conflation of practice and theory is examined through an analysis of studio teaching and student projects at the first-year level at the Architecture School at the University of Edinburgh in 2005/06, where the authors are Course Organiser and Tutors. Using studio projects as key studies, we will test the teaching and learning procedures that reflect the notions of theory and practice that appear in design education.
Ongoing ethnomethodological study of these projects through interviews; video and audio recordings from the tutorials and the reviews; photos of the drawings, sketches and models made during the design process; and the experience of participant observation as teachers - contrasted with our experience in professional architectural practice - illustrate a fresh interrelation between practice and theory. By moving along the continuum between architectural academia and practice, we will explore the space between the extremes of the Aristotelian theoria and praxis.

The issues of practice and academia are inextricably connected yet demarcated by the deepest of d... more The issues of practice and academia are inextricably connected yet demarcated by the deepest of divisions. Often, the concerns of (either) one seem of little consequence to the other. Practice, with its inherent demand to respond to its economic imperative, expects academia to provide an inexhaustible supply of freshly trained ‘talent’, prepared to competently produce an endless volume of construction details. Academia, with limited time to share only the narrowest bit of knowledge in pursuit of educating the next generation of stewards of the built environment, have little time for the hard pragmatics of the practice environment. This suggests a certain binary relationship that surely does not exist, by and large, in this most extreme form. To invoke the metaphor of a continuum, with design/theory on one extreme and service-oriented practice at the opposite extreme, we can situate each architectural education institution and each architectural practice along that continuum appropri...

Changing Trends in Architectural …, Jan 1, 2006

Changing Trends in Architectural …, 2006

Changing Trends in Architectural Design Education 267 Architectural Practice and Academia: the pr... more Changing Trends in Architectural Design Education 267 Architectural Practice and Academia: the praxis and theoria continuum Keith Ballantyne, Leonidas Koutsoumpos School of Arts, Culture & Environment, Department of Architecture, University of Edinburgh ...